Saturday, May 14, 2005

The US military says four Marines were killed when their troop transporter was struck by a bomb near Karabilah, a village near Obeidi and close to the Syrian border, bring to nine the number of U.S. casualties in the week-old campaign. But a Washington Post reporter embedded with U.S. forces put the American death toll Thursday at seven — six of them from one squad. That would put the overall toll at 12 deaths.

Also Friday, an American soldier was killed and four others wounded when a car bomb exploded in Beiji, 155 miles north of Baghdad, the military said in a statement.

A similar car bomb attack in central Baghdad on Saturday killed at least four Iraqis and injured 11, police said at the scene. The blast outside the former Ministry of Education destroyed cars and set fire to a minibus. At least nine more Iraqis were killed Friday in a series of bombings, ambushes and other attacks.